Australia’s language policies are we going backwards?

1991 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Clyne

The recent White Paper, Australia’s Language – The Australian Language and Literacy Policy, is the latest contribution to the history of language policies in Australia. This article explores that history, giving particular attention to each of the string of policy documents released since the early 1980s. Features of the current debate in Australia are drawn out, and a comparative assessment is made of Australia’s policies and those of other countries.

1991 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Joseph Lo Bianco

This paper is a review of the achievements of the National Policy on Languages. The National Policy on Languages was adopted by the Federal government in May 1987 and implemented from that date until June 1991. In September of 1991 the Federal government adopted a White Paper entitled Australia’s Language; The Australian Language and Literacy Policy. In the companion volume to this it stated that the White Paper is an extension and maintenance of the National Policy on Languages.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Lundberg

Abstract Multilingualism represents a global challenge and a goal of education in European states. This meta-analysis examines how research studies on multilingual educational policy documents on a macro-level (national/regional) in Sweden and Switzerland differ in terms of foci and how the discourses in the articles represent different treatments of multilingual educational language policies. These countries were selected because of their similarities regarding the societal context, but they are different in regard to language policy issues and political formation. The articles were systematically identified via two databases, ERIC and LLBA, and in order to examine the latest developments after the introduction of a new language act in Sweden and the harmonization of public education in Switzerland in 2009, only research articles published between 2009 and 2016 were included. The results of the study suggest that a monolingual habitus exists in the Swedish nation state context compared to a more pluralistic approach in Switzerland. The most noteworthy result is the diverging definitions of multilingualism and plurilingual students and how this understanding influences the treatment of educational policies in these two linguistically and culturally superdiverse European countries.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Nazari

This paper is an attempt to analyse one of the documents which may affect the classroom activities of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, namely teachers' guides. It also explores the context at which the document is aimed and critiques how EFL teachers are advised to teach as well as how EFL is taught. As such, the paper stands where critical discourse analysis and language policy come together in the study of language policies in education. The teachers' guide chosen and the analysis carried out here are not necessarily concerned with their representativeness and typicality but with the opportunity they provide to the researchers and teachers to learn about such language policy documents and how language and language teaching objectives are represented in them. The issues raised in this paper will have relevance to the EFL teachers' guides and EFL education in other contexts, as these issues are likely to be true of other EFL milieux.


2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-233
Author(s):  
Simone Tiemi Hashiguti

ABSTRACT This essay explores the issue of oral production in English as a foreign language in Brazil. It reports the difficulty some students find to speak the language to matters of authority and legitimacy constituted in a particular history of language policies. Interest in the theme emerged because many Brazilian students who know English state they cannot speak the language and avoid pronouncing it and engaging in conversations. A discursive methodological framework forms the basis for the analysis of postings collected from discussion forums on different websites. First, I can´t speak English works as the reference statement that makes it possible to verify a discursive regularity in operation in Brazil. Second, a postcolonial theoretical framework supports the discussion on the conditions of possibility to speak English as a foreign language in a former Portuguese colony. The author argues that the ghost of the native, idealized speaker prevents students from recognizing the English they know as legitimate, and to speak it, and points out that dignity is a possible discourse to help deconstruct the colonial, silenced positioning that exists regarding the oral production in this foreign language.


2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAN HARPER

This paper argues for the inclusion of ethnography as a research methodology for understanding the effects of public health policy. To do this, the implementation of DOTS (Directly Observed Therapy, Short-course) – the World Health Organization (WHO) prescribed policy for the control of the infectious disease tuberculosis – is explored in the context of Nepal. A brief history of DOTS and its implementation in Nepal is outlined, and the way it has been represented by those within the Nepal Tuberculosis Programme (NTP) is described. This is followed by an outline of the research done in relation to this, and the ethnographic methods used. These ethnographic data are then interpreted and analysed in relation to two specific areas of concern. Firstly, the effects around the epidemiological uses of ‘cases’ is explored; it is argued that a tightening of the definitional categories so necessary for the programme to be stabilized for comparative purposes has profound material effects in marginalizing some from treatment. Secondly, the paper examines some of the implications and effects relating to the way that the ‘directly observed’ component was implemented. The discussion explores how current debate on DOTS has been played out in some medical journals. It argues for the importance of ethnography as a method for understanding certain questions that cannot be answered by particular, and increasingly dominant, research ideologies informed by randomized controlled trials. This raises important issues about the nature of ‘evidence’ in debates on the relationship of research to policy.


1991 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 39-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Sussex

The Green Paper The Language of Australia released in December 1990, is the first step in a reworking of language policy in Australia. This paper reviews some of the issues raised in the Green Paper and looks at the implications the agenda the Green Paper sets. The Green Paper contains some good ideas in a flawed cover. The positive aspects of the document will need to be developed in a context based on a holistic view of language and literacy policy and a strong commitment to the consolidation of language policy initiatives.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (259) ◽  
pp. 15-38
Author(s):  
Clara Keating

Abstract This article presents a historical analysis of discourses about language and literacy that have emerged during different periods in the political and cultural history of Portugal. It covers six periods, from the colonial era to the present, and it considers different geopolitical spaces, including the Portuguese mainland, the Atlantic archipelagos, former Portuguese colonies and diasporic spaces created as a result of emigration from Portugal. The article traces three kinds of discursive shift: (1) shifts in discourses in Portuguese society regarding the goals of language and literacy education, along with associated discourses about appropriate language and literacy pedagogies; (2) shifts in discourses about the specific nature and significance of literacy in Portuguese; and (3) shifts in discourses about the value and symbolic power of standardized forms of spoken and written Portuguese. It shows how each historical period has been characterized by distinctive political and ideological currents which have, in turn, shaped and re-shaped ways of thinking about the role of language and literacy education in the definition of citizenship and national identity, in the construction of heritage, in the creation of a “modern” democratic state and, more recently, in the retooling of human resources to create a flexible labour force.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Pillinger ◽  
Stephenie C. Lemon ◽  
Martin S. Zand ◽  
P. Jeffrey Foster ◽  
Jeanne S. Merchant ◽  
...  

AbstractMini-sabbaticals are formal short-term training and educational experiences away from an investigator’s home research unit. These may include rotations with other research units and externships at government research or regulatory agencies, industry and non-profit programs, and training and/or intensive educational programs. The National Institutes of Health have been encouraging training institutions to consider offering mini-sabbaticals, but given the newness of the concept, limited data are available to guide the implementation of mini-sabbatical programs. In this paper, we review the history of sabbaticals and mini-sabbaticals, report the results of surveys we performed to ascertain the use of mini-sabbaticals at Clinical and Translational Science Award hubs, and consider best practice recommendations for institutions seeking to establish formal mini-sabbatical programs.


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